Calla returned her attention to him once more. “Did you guys solve the problem?”
Jared nodded. He took a step back and gestured towards Lucas.
“Calla, this is Lucas Perez, a good friend and business partner.” He settled a hand on Calla’s back and drew her forward towards Lucas. “Lucas, this is my wife, Calla.”
Lucas smiled broadly and offered her his hand. The dark tone of his skin clashed with the soft white of hers.
“It is a pleasure,” he said. “I heard many things about you.”
Calla inclined her head. “It’s nice to meet you as well. You have a beautiful coffee shop.”
“Calla owns her own boutique,” Jared bragged for her.
Interest sparked in Lucas’s eyes the way they always did when the prospect of shop-talk reared its head.
“Here?”
“Willow Creek,” she answered. “It’s nothing big.”
“It’s amazing,” Jared argued. “And doing very well. They just got a website set up.”
Calla elbowed him lightly, but her face was a soft, pleased pink.
“What is it called?” Lucas asked. “Maybe I will come by.”
“Libellule,” she said.
Lucas’ eyes narrowed. “My French is rusty … bumblebee?”
Calla chuckled. “Dragonfly.”
“Yes!” Lucas grinned. “Beautiful name.”
Calla thanked him just as the door opened and a group of women breezed in. She left Jared’s side to take their order.
“She is beautiful,” Lucas said when she was out of ear shot. “And smart. How did you find a woman so much better than you?”
Jared couldn’t even think of a reason to be upset by that comment. Why would he when he wondered the same thing himself.
“Hell if I know.”
“Well, take care you keep her.” Lucas grinned at him. “A woman like that doesn’t come into a man’s life twice in one lifetime.”
He couldn’t agree more.
“Oh, I definitely plan to.”
Calla returned to them a moment later.
“So, how did you two meet?”
Lucas blinked. “You haven’t told her?”
Jared visibly cringed. “I was hoping it would never come up,” he answered honestly.
Lucas gasped in feigned outrage. His hand flew up dramatically to his chest.
“It was a defining moment,” he declared.
Calla laughed. “Okay, now someone has to tell me.”
Jared made them each a cappuccino and joined them at the table next to the window. He took the spot next to Calla as Lucas retold the story of how he met Jared with a flourish that should only be reserved for theater.
“So there I was,” Lucas began. “Sitting through a boring seminar about the importance of filing the proper paperwork when opening a business and who should stumble in? Jared. He just barges into the room, an hour late, looking lost and confused with one hand opening his pants.”
“I wasn’t opening my pants,” Jared mumbled against the rim of his mug. “I was getting ready.”
Calla laughed. “For what?”
Lucas continued before Jared could answer. “So he stands there, at the head of the class and says, I’m guessing this isn’t the bathroom.”
Calla laughed harder. The sound of it carried through the shop, but none of them cared.
“He just stands there,” Lucas went on. “No one is talking. The instructor looks horrified. Then Jared says, can someone point me to the bathroom before I piss on the floor?”
“You didn’t!” Calla gasped.
“I really had to go,” Jared said, chuckling himself.
Calla, shaking her head, turned back to Lucas. “What then?”
“I took him,” Lucas said mildly. “What else could I do? We became friends after that. Been friends for three years now.”
“Aw!” Calla sighed. “I like that story. So how did you decide to go into business together?”
“That was my idea,” Lucas said at once. “I have always wanted to open my own restaurant, but I cannot cook—” Calla chuckled and took a sip of her drink. “—so I opened a coffee shop instead, because I love coffee. But I couldn’t without a co-signer. The bank was being unreasonable.”
“You had shitty credit,” Jared reminded him.
Lucas waved his hand dismissively. “Besides the point. Anyway, when I found this place, I knew it was my dream. It was perfect. I had to have it.”
“He really did,” Jared said. “It was scary how badly he wanted it.”
“But it didn’t look like this,” Lucas said, face growing serious, like he was telling a ghost story and was reaching a critical point in his tale. “It was a disaster. Nothing worked. It was infested with rodents and it was falling apart. The bank told me it would cost me double what I had to just do the repairs, never mind ordering furniture and machinery and such. So I went to my friend and construction engineer technician.”
Jared sighed, setting his mug down. “I thought he was insane. This place was a death trap…” he paused, squinted down at Calla. “Kind of like your car.” He snickered when she smacked him lightly in the arm. “But I agreed—”
“After making me beg,” Lucas muttered. “I practically had to promise him my first unborn child.”
“I was a construction engineer, not a subcontractor. I’d never built anything bigger than a rocking chair. I didn’t know how to get a building into shape. But I agreed, only because he was driving me nuts.”
Lucas beamed, unabashed. “Six months later…” He spread his arms open wide. “My dream is born.”
“I love this place,” Calla said with a sigh. She rested a hand on Jared’s arm. “You did amazing.” She smiled sheepishly at Lucas. “Both of you.”
Jared slid his arm out from under his and eased it around the back of her chair. “Thanks, babe. But I can’t take all the credit. I didn’t do the lights.” He shuddered visibly. “I could never make it as an electrician. I have this fear of getting electrocuted.”
Calla chuckled. “It’s still wonderful, and the coffee is amazing!” She took another sip of her drink. “I think I’m tempted to make the twenty minute drive out of town to get one of these every morning.”
“Here.” Lucas hurried out of his seat and disappeared behind the counter. A moment later, he returned with a small bag of unground coffee beans. He set it down in front of Calla. “You only need a good coffee grinder.”
Calla beamed. “Thank you!”
They stayed another few minutes after that as Lucas asked Calla about her business. The two seemed to be in their elements. Jared listened, occasionally answering a question, but he let them talk.
When it was time to go, Lucas shook Calla’s hand and made her promise to come back, to which Calla agreed she would. She was still grinning when Jared led her to the truck.
“I like him,” she said as he helped her into the cabin, her coffee hugged to her middle.
“Yeah, Lucas’s great.”
He closed her door and hurried to his side.
“So why did you never tell anyone you co-owned a coffee shop?” she asked once he was behind the wheel.
He started the truck before answering, “Because I really don’t feel like I do. I helped fix it and I help keep it up to date and all, but Lucas does the actual work. It’s his dream. I have no problems keeping out of the spotlight. Besides, I’m not a coffee shop owner. I’m a builder. I like building and fixing. That’s my dream.”
Calla smiled. “That’s actually kind of sweet.”
Jared chuckled as he eased them onto the street and headed off. “Thanks.”
“So.” She adjusted her weight in her seat. “What was the emergency?”
Jared sighed. “Hayley’s been giving him a hard time.”
“Hayley,” she repeated slowly. “The girl that was here the last time we came?”
He nodded. “I think because she was upset with me.”
“Why?�
� There was a quietness to the question he didn’t miss. “Were you together?”
“We went out once,” he said honestly. “It was months ago, before Denise. It was one date.”
“Did you sleep with her?”
“No, I knew by the end of the night we wouldn’t work out. She was too easily excitable. Everything was always in extremes with her, as you saw. I told her it wouldn’t work, but I think she was hoping I’d change my mind.”
She said nothing for two blocks.
“So what happened?”
“Nothing. I told her she was fired and her check would be in the mail.”
“You fired her?” The surprise in her voice amused him.
“Angry, or not, she was still an employee and if she doesn’t do her job, then she doesn’t have one.” He decided to change the subject. “Are you hungry?”
They grabbed dinner at a Greek restaurant before heading back to his apartment.
Despite wanting to go slow, Calla already had a spare of almost everything stowed away throughout his flat. He’d woken up one morning to a pink toothbrush next to his green one, socks and feminine, lacy panties in his underwear drawer and shoes … God, the woman had a shit ton of shoes. Yet that was nothing compared to the small shopping mall hung in neat rows inside his closet, folded in color coordinated rows inside his dresser and scattered across his floor. But when he brought up the notion of her just moving in, she had laughed and said it was too soon. It made him wonder just how much more stuff she could possibly have.
But the thing that really puzzled him was that she never wanted to go to her place. Since waking up married, they never went back. She never offered and he never asked and that only made him all the more curious.
“What do you say we crash at your place tonight?” he threw into the silence.
He felt rather than saw her head turn to him.
“My place?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged, keeping both eyes on the road. “We’re closer to it.”
“But you don’t have any of your stuff at my place.”
“That’s all right. I don’t work until later so I can always drive back to my place in the morning.” He stole a glance over at her when she said nothing. “Is there a reason you don’t want to go there?”
She was eyeing him warily. “No,” she murmured slowly. “There isn’t.”
“Great.”
She didn’t stop him when he started down her road. But there was a palatable tension in the cabin that seemed to thicken the closer they got. When he parked, she didn’t wait for him to get her door before she hopped out. Jared made no comment as he followed her mutely to the door. Neither spoke all the way to the third floor. Her keys muffled the shuffle of their feet. She let them into the blue-black darkness of her apartment and quietly closed them into it.
For a moment there was nothing, no sight, no sound. Then she flipped the light switch on and he winced. Her blue eyes met his and the quiet deliberation in them gave him pause. But whatever she was thinking, she never voiced it. Instead, she undid her jacket and moved deeper into the sitting room. Jared followed.
“We don’t have to be here if you don’t want.”
In the process of tossing her coat onto the back of an armchair, she turned to him. “Why do you want to be here?”
He shrugged. “Why not?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I’m not hiding anyone here.”
Her response completely threw him.
“That isn’t even remotely what I was thinking.”
“What then?” She folded her arms. “Is this your way of saying I’m at your place too much, because you could have just said so?”
Wow. He couldn’t believe how fast things had escalated.
“That is not what…” He stared at her in mute disbelief. “Jesus, Calla, I asked you to move in with me just last week!”
“Maybe you were being sarcastic.”
“I wasn’t! I don’t care if you’re there. I like you being there.”
“Then why are we here?” she snapped.
“Why not?” He threw up his arms in exasperation. “Why is this such a big deal?”
“Because I don’t understand why you had the sudden desire to come here.”
“Because it’s your place!”
Her face said it before her mouth did. “So?”
Neither one of them was going to win this, he realized.
“You know what, why don’t I leave? We can talk tomorrow.”
Something darkened across her eyes. He could see the shift of emotions, the tight coil of her shoulders. She peered back at him with a mangled knot of hurt and anger.
“If you didn’t want to spend the night with me, you could have just said!” she snapped. “I’m not some airhead who wouldn’t have understood.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” he shot back furiously.
“You brought me here so you could go off and spend the night doing whatever!”
Jared sputtered, actually sputtered as disbelief and a sick sort of humorless amusement broke through him.
“Are you serious right now?” he finally blurted.
Blood filled her cheeks, but she didn’t back down. “Don’t I look serious? Or do you think this is some kind of joke?”
“I don’t know what to think!” he cried. “I don’t know where any of this is coming from.”
“Then leave!” she half screamed. “There’s the door. Go!”
His own temper sizzling, Jared threw up his hands. “Fine!”
He left, slamming the door behind him like some hormonal teenager. The sound of it followed him all the way down the hall, mixing with the dark cloud of fury keeping him company. The metal steps leading to the backdoor sang with every hard pound of his feet.
“Pigheaded, stubborn…” he snarled under his breath.
His shoulder slammed into the apartment door and he was out in the parking lot, sucking in the sharp, cold air. His head of steam propelled him to the truck and all the way home before he realized what a colossal asshole he was. True it hadn’t been entirely his fault, but he sure as hell hadn’t made the situation better. There were so many things he could have done differently, so many things he could have said to calm her down. Instead, he’d acted like an idiot and stormed off.
Digging into his pocket, he unearthed his phone and called her. It never even rang and went straight to voicemail.
“Hey,” he murmured. “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. Call me back, please?”
He considered driving back to her place and banging on the front door until someone let him in, but he knew this was better. They both needed time and space to cool down. Going back now would insure another fight and he didn’t want that. Hopefully, by the time she got his message, they would both be in a place willing to talk calmly.
In the meantime, he stayed in his clothes, but removed his boots before crawling into bed with his phone in hand. He flopped onto his stomach and waited for her to call him back.
The insistent shrilling scraped against the nerve endings of his brain like little claws. His agitated groan muffled it for a second before it was back, somehow louder than before.
Tangled sheets shifted beneath his searching hand before something cold and plastic hit his fingertips. He blindly hit talk and stuffed the offending device to his ear.
“What?”
There was a sort of silence on the other end, but it was hard to tell if it was actually there, or if he was falling asleep with the phone clutched to his face.
“Are you sleeping?” the voice demanded.
Jared grunted. He pried one eye open and squinted at the alarm clock.
“It’s three in the morning, asshole,” he grumbled.
“Well, I’ve been up most of the night trying to keep Willa from driving home, so get your ass up.”
Jared frowned. “Willa? What’s wrong with Willa?”
“The real question is what is wrong with Calla?”
He was instant
ly alert. “Calla? What’s wrong with Calla?”
“You tell me,” Damon shot back. “She called Willa upset and now Willa’s all upset and you know how I feel about that. What did you do?”
“Me?” Jared tossed back the covers and rolled himself out of bed. “I didn’t really do anything.”
“Willa thinks otherwise. Now, are you going to fix it, or do I have to come over there and beat your ass?”
His answer was to hang up and stuff the phone into his pocket. He shoved his feet into his boots, threw on his coat and marched out of his apartment. At Calla’s, he parked the truck in the lot and marched around front to buzz her suite. No one answered the first eight times, but he kept his finger on the button until there was a click.
“What?” came Calla’s furious snarl.
“Let me in!” he snapped back.
There was a pause. Then, “Jared?”
“Who the hell else would be crazy enough to show up on your doorstep at three in the fucking morning?”
“Why are you here?”
Jared frowned down at the metallic box. “Seriously? You want to have this conversation through an intercom?”
He heard her sigh. “Fine.”
The door buzzed and he marched inside. She was waiting for him in her doorway when he got to her floor and the sight of her tussled hair, rumpled flannel button up, and bare feet made his insides groan.
“It’s three in the morning,” she mumbled, careful to keep her voice down. “Why couldn’t this wait another few hours?” She took him in and frowned. “Why are you wearing the same clothes?”
“Because I fell asleep in them,” he shot back. “Because I was waiting for you to call me back, which you never did.”
Her frown deepened. “My phone died last night. It’s still being charged. You called me?”
“Yeah!” He dodged past her into the apartment. “I wanted us to talk … like adults.”
She shut the door quietly behind her and turned to face him. “So you waited until three in the morning to have that talk?”
“No! I was sleeping. Damon phoned and said Willa was freaking out because you were upset.”
“Willa.” Her exhale was followed by the roll of her eyes. “I’m going to strangle her.” With a shake of her head, she fixed him with her attention. “I’m not upset anymore. You can go.”
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